Wolf House

Director(s) - Ken Consentino (Attack of the Killer Shrews!, Crimson: The Motion Picture) and Matt D. Lord (Ex, Suicide)
Starring - Jessica Bell (Captain America: Civil War, Legend of the Keyblade), Ken Consentino, and Marcus Ganci-Rotella (Killer Rack, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead)
Release Date - 2016
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Ancient. Unknown. Unstoppable."
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     The power of the 3's.  By this point in my horror review career I've noticed that when I come across a film I didn't like I usually follow that up with two more that I don't care for.  I tried to break the trend by going with a Wild Eye flick.  Most of you know I love Wild Eye Releasing just as much as I do Troma or Full Moon.  Over the years they have released some pretty entertaining films that you can't get anywhere else.  One of their most recent releases is the found footage film Wolf House.  I would once say that I was not fond of found footage but a few films over the years has really opened my eyes to see the possibilities.  I want to take a moment to thank Wild Eye for allowing me the opportunity to check out their release.  Thanks!
     The film follows a group of twenty-somethings who venture out  into the woods for a little drinking, hunting, and fornicating.  However, things take an unsuspecting dark turn when one of them bags a giant, fury creature who they suspect is sasquatch.  The group is then torn with what to do with the beast.  Some want to call the authorities and let them handle the situation while others want to use it to get their 15 minutes of fame.  They bag it up and take it back to their cabin where they soon learn that the creature was not alone and nor was it dead.
     I was actually pretty excited for this one.  Not long ago some of you may recall me watching and reviewing one of Henrique Couto's found footage flicks Alone in the Ghost House.  I was very surprised by how much I enjoyed the film and the characters.  Couto is a wild man when it comes to story telling and Alone in the Ghost House put his own take on the found footage sub-genre.  I was hoping that Wolf House would take no budget and turn it into something...for the record, it did not.  The acting in this one is rough.  I have seen indie horror flicks made with no budget and consisted of friends in the backyard with their phones or a borrowed video camera.  These types of films had better acted than what I witnessed.  In many of the scenes I felt that the cast was just doing a read through and not actually acting.  In other scenes the cast over does it making it awkward to watch.  I know they are trying to make this as real as possible to capture that found footage feel but they over do it to the point its almost embarrassing.  The story for this one is fantastic but falls apart as quick as it gets started.  The story for this one is simple but shows some imagination.  However, the film quickly falls apart after the big reveal.  The overall film feels underwritten and leaves the impression that it was not completely written with filming began.  The characters are flat and the film is painful to watch once we reach the creature reveal.  A great ending and characters we could get behind would have made this experience a little more enjoyable.  Finally, if you want gore and a great looking creature then look elsewhere.  This film has one of the goofiest looking beasts along with the weakest effects I have seen in indie horror in a long time.  Brutal Jesus actually makes this film look good.  You can have decent effects with no budget you just have to dedicate time to crafting them and researching YouTube tutorials.  Overall, Wolf House is one I can not recommend.  The acting is not there, the story is half assed, and the effects were skipped.  This film feels like a quick project put together to get some experience or funding for a future film instead of a passion piece.  Skip it and check out Wild Eye's release of Badass Monster Killer coming this June.